Back in (a different) saddle again

 Whatever 2022 brings, it looks like starting off well. 

I left my position at College Church in Wheaton (October 2012) to finish a MA in Historical Theology, with plans to pursue a ThD and/concurrent with a return to church music and worship ministry. As they say (inaccurately quoted here), "we make our plans, and God laughs." God may laugh, but he does not abandon us. And in my particular case, God kept me active in my vocation . . . but without a church gig to in which to exercise it.

So I have rather enjoyed eight years of full-time teaching (following one year as an adjunct) at Trinity College in Trinity International University. There I have taught courses related to music history (my first academic discipline) and worship music (my experience and first love). That all began to wrap up when TIU chose to close the music department effective May 2021. (No grumbling here, but this is still a very sore issue, and I'm happy to talk about it offline :~)

May 2021 began what I thought would be semi-retirement. I planned to teach (adjunct) the music history sequence--ending at Trinity College the way I began! nice, that symmetry--and directing the Trinity Choir. Then a seminary prof (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, TEDS) called and asked if I would teach the MDiv course in worship and pastoral ministry. Umm, yes please! So that was going to be my last year of teaching. And it seemed pretty good to me.

In August I received a call from the TEDS dean, inviting me to take a one-year, full-time position. This would include what I had already signed on for, plus TEDS director of chapel, and assist the Assistant Dean for undergraduate Bible and ministry students. Will this be my final year of teaching? Of teaching full-time? Of exercising my calling in a public manner? God knows, and I'm content to have him laugh at my ideas.

So anyway, teaching the seminary course, Christian Worship and Pastoral Practice, gives me a chance to again reflect upon and write along the topic for which this blog was established. Here we go . . . again!